CNMI selected to present TQM in Africa

Three Commonwealth Health Center staff members will present their project on “Improving Revenue Collections with TQI at CHC” at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business in South Africa.

CHC Business Office acting supervisor for Billing Section Denise Prosser, Collections manager Rosa C. Sorensen, and Business Office manager Esther L. Muna will take part in the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Sustainable Management Development Program set from May 21 to 26 in Cape Town.

Muna, acting as the project leader, said their research on the improvement of revenue collections at the CHC, which eventually solved the problems of claims denial in the hospital industry in the CNMI, was selected as a recipient of the SMDP Applied Management Learning Project Award.

According to the SMDP director Michael D. Malison, the award recognizes the outstanding in-country applied management learning projects that effectively demonstrated the use of MIPH course concepts in solving real public health problems.

The CNMI team will be given 20 minutes for the presentation, followed by another 10 minutes for the question-and-answer portion.

Muna said the CNMI team was awarded an all-expense paid trip with per diem allowance, airfare, and accommodations.

“But the award is for only one person,” she said, adding that now they are raising funds for Prosser and Sorensen.

The conference, with a theme “Strengthening Global Public Health Management Capacity: Leadership, Innovation, and Sustainability,” is sponsored by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention under the Department of Health and Human Services.

South Africa’s Conference Management Centre officer Deborah McTeer also said the biennial conference would bring together public health professionals from around the globe to discuss the roles of management training and management capacity building in improving public health systems and programs.

“The conference will provide an opportunity for the international alumni network of the Management for International Public Health course, offered annually by SMDP, to exchange lessons learned about improving public health management in developing countries,” said McTeer.

The CHC team attended a training under the University of Guam Health Leaders Achieving Today, Tomorrow’s Excellence in November last year. The team then presented the result of their research to CHC staff including physicians, nurses and administrators.

Muna said right after their presentation at the local hospital, UoG MIPH instructor Maria I. Pangelinan and CHC administrators urged the team to submit their project to SMDP for the fellowship award. The team submitted their project proposal to the program in February this year, she said, and on March 3 they all received a letter of admission to the conference.

“I’m excited that we’ve been chosen coming from a small island. It is really a big deal,” Muna said. Prosser added that as far as they are aware of this is the first time that representatives from the CNMI have been selected to attend the international conference.

Muna said their project wouldn’t have been selected without the help and encouragement of the following: Dr. James U. Hofschneider, Department of Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez, Pas Calvo, Tina Santos and UoG’s Pangelinan.